IT HAS NONFICTION, TOO

Why Harper Lee’s New Book Is Different

I skipped the ‘inept’ last book by the author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ but this one deserves a chance

Harper Lee and the covers of her novels / HarperCollins via Duke University libraries

Here in lower Alabama, it’s easy to find people who’d met Harper Lee and hard to find anyone who disliked her. My retina specialist, who also treated Lee, summed up what seems to be the prevailing view: She was “a nice lady.”

Alabamians scoff at the myth that Lee was a Salinger-esque recluse. She saw friends here and in New York City, where she lived part time in a red brick apartment building at 433 E. 82d St., identified on the buzzer system as “H-Lee.” She went to the annual awards ceremonies up in Tuscaloosa for a To Kill a Mockingbird essay contest for high school students, posing for photos with the winners. She entertained people at home in Monroeville, including Barbara Holt, a health care consultant.

Holt wrote week on Facebook, after the news broke that a clutch of previously uncollected stories by Lee had come to light:

“When I was a social worker in Alabama, Harper Lee invited me to have tea at her home. It was the most graceful, traditional Southern experience I ever had.”